Book Bites: 3 Sentence Intro About What This Story Is

Everly Morrow finds out that she has an incredible ability to speak through mirrors and absorb powers from others – but at a price…the death of her beloved mother. Desperately trying to figure out her true origins, she travels to her parents’ magical homeland, Enchantia, where she battles constant betrayals and dark temptations to prevent her fate of becoming the Evil Queen. Along the way, she starts meeting other characters who play a role in the unfolding prophecy, including the strong, charming and seductive Prince Roth Charmaine; but can a destined villain have a happily ever after with a charming prince?

*As usual, to see the official book teaser/summary of this, go to anywhere books are found and read up more about what this book is about.

Now on to My Commentary (**May Contain Spoilers: Read at Your Own Risk)

Book Review: The Evil Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #1)

Book Review: The Glass Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #2)

If you’ve been following my blog, you’re well aware already what I hate most in the world because you know what I do like to read.

Hate: Disney-fluff crap. (Okay, some days I like it.)

Like (or love, depending on how well executed it is): Basically, the darker, more twisted, sadistic, tragic and relatable a fairytale is, the more I love it.

The Evil Queen is an imaginative retelling of the classic “Snow White” fairytale with Showalter’s signature style and flare. It is told from the viewpoint of the prophesied Evil Queen (love when a “villainess” is the protagonist!). In this case, seventeen year old Everly Morrow.

From all the books I’ve read by Gena Showalter, I can say you will be guaranteed a memorable and emotional rollercoaster that you’ll gladly ride over and over again. I was laughing, crying, screaming, cheering, and boo-ing along with all the characters! I’ve always believed that one of the elements Showalter excels at is taking familiar myths, legends, folklore, and fairytales and really making it her own. Showalter’s signature: sizzling romance, witty dialogue, spunky heroines (Everly Morrow) and sexy bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold heroes (Prince Roth Charmaine), fantasy and action/adventure galore. If you like books with these ingredients, you’ll love The Evil Queen.

Enchanting world-building. Captivating, addictive story-telling. A sweet and spicy romance. The Evil Queen takes our ideas of fairytales and puts a dark twist on it. Fairytales in Enchantia are actually prophecies that affects each child born from those who ate the forbidden apples of the Tree of New Beginnings. Blessing or curse?

The oracle has spoken of the prophecy: Snow White defeats the Evil Queen. And Everly Morrow is the fated Evil Queen.

However, fate isn’t always what it seems to be. Roles aren’t always set in stone. That’s what Everly has to learn when she comes into her powers, learns of Enchantia, and tries to follow the trail of clues to see if she can prevent the story of “Snow White and the Evil Queen” from playing out so that she doesn’t end up as the dreaded villainess.

The Romance Between Everly and Roth

Everly and Roth made me giddy with excitement!! I laughed out loud countless times at their banter (ahem – flirting) as I found both to be very witty (my favorite). Prince Roth is an extremely skilled and intelligent warrior who is very dedicated to his family and the wellness of the kingdom that will be his to rule one day. He’d do anything to protect them. Everly matches Roth perfectly as she too is skilled and intelligent and would do anything to protect those she loved. When the two first meet each other, it was fire from the get-go. They were instinctively drawn to each other. And it was totally obvious to the others around them how strong their chemistry was (the teasing from the others kept me smiling).

Like, please universe, give me a man like Prince Roth to have verbal spars with! Aghhh! He and Everly are so beautiful together and individually!!

I resonated with everything that Everly went through. Fighting the evil that she’s fated to be, the evil that everyone saw her as and believed she was, had to be incredibly painful. But dammit! Every chance she got, she didn’t let herself succumb to letting her fate be written for her. She didn’t let each backstab from allies tear her down. She was a fighter! She fought to be good. Stood up for herself. And as every person conspired to defeat her, she grew more powerful.

As the oracle said, heat and pressure creates diamonds. Everly was meant to be the brightest, sparkliest diamond.

She was always seen as the villain though she only tried to be a hero. To desperately prove to herself and others that she had a good heart. And when everyone says and believes you’re a certain way, an unfortunate consequence is that you also start believing you’re that way.

That is until her dream boy made her believe in her goodness. Who saw her for more than just the fated role she was meant to play in the “Snow White and the Evil Queen” prophecy. From the beginning, Roth loved Everly, was amused and intrigued by her. He also protected and defended her when others wanted to cast her aside. Slowly, Everly too began to see herself as someone who is good and is capable of being loved. This is what I loved about Roth’s character. He’s a sweet, honorable (and totally sexy bad boy) who stood by Everly even at her worst moments. He was consistent with his feelings for her from the beginning and he was never conflicted – or at least showed hesitation – about his feelings for her. He always wanted her. I respected Roth’s character. That’s not something I can say about all male love interests (both in fiction and in real life).

Enchantia

First off, the world of Enchantia is everything you can imagine when you think fairytale kingdom! Enchantia is very reminiscent of Once Upon A Time (TV series). Aghhh! LOVE IT.

Four kingdoms (Airairia, Fleur, Azul, and Sevon) and the Enchanted Forest make up the realm of Enchantia. You got trolls, fairies, avians, griffins, nymphs, royals, sorcerers, literally every creature fantasy creature possibly conceived. You know, just your perfect chocolate box mix of swashbuckling action/adventure characters. Pure high fantasy goodness!

I really wanted to journey through Enchantia. It had much history, beauty, treasures, and interesting characters throughout all the lands. You will find yourself blissfully lost in this world.

All the personalities and characters were diverse too (which I hadn’t come across much in the other books by Showalter). I was very excited at the diversity in nationalities and sexual orientations!

Final Thoughts

You know how there are some books that just touch your heart?

Give you answers at the darkest, lowest points of your life?

Comfort you when you feel alone and have little hope because you’re so bogged down by your fears and doubts?

The Evil Queen was one of those for me. It gave me comfort when I was feeling down. And if you haven’t read last week’s post (and why haven’t you?), I talked about feeling burned out for weeks. So I was in a pretty low mood. And The Evil Queen cheered me up. Because I’ve always felt like I was a bad person, with bad intentions, self-serving, narcissistic, manipulative, etc. Reading this gave me reminders that like Prince Roth said, “Every hero is a villain. And every villain is a hero. It just depends on who you ask.” You can’t please people. But like Everly learned, you can become comfortable with who you are and know that you’re still capable of being loved and admired (by a sexy bad boy like Roth, please and thank-you universe!).

Also the fact that I love Gena Showalter’s work and will read and love anything this author writes.

Check out this book if it piques your interest. Hope you enjoy it as your next read or a re-read!

And remember, “Every story is worth the read. Someone (some poor, overworked, ink-stains-on-the-clothes lovely soul) took the time to write it.”